At any given time nearly 50 percent of people are on a diet and trying to lose weight. But they’re not usually successful. Marcie Fraser reports on bariatric surgery, and tells us if it’s good, bad, and who it’s for.

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Seventy five percent of Americans are overweight and many try to diet.

Bariatric patient Becki LaGrange said, "It was awful to be at my heaviest, it was uncomfortable."

After decades of dieting unsuccessfully LaGrange opted for bariatric surgery, the laproscopic adjustable lap band. A band is placed around the upper part of the stomach forming a pouch and people can't eat as much without feeling full.

Bariatric surgeon Dr. Matt McDonald said, “We are not manipulating or repositioning any bowel or doing any staple lines or anything or taking out parts of the bowel. This is a procedure that puts it around the top of the stomach."

The surgery is done through four small incisions in the abdomen.

"We place the band through one of the ports, identify the area around the stomach where we need to place the band itself and we wrap around the top of the stomach and we do place a few sutures to help keep the band in place and make it less likely to slide and move,” said Dr. McDonald.

As the patients lose weight the band needs to be tightened, which is done by filling the band with saline delivered through a port in the abdomen under the skin. It's filled every 5 weeks or so and takes nearly a year to achieve the perfect fill.

Some critics said bariatric surgery can affect your nutrition because it bypasses the digestive system, but when you are considering a lap band, it is considered restrictive and not interrupting any nutritional pathway.

"With all these procedures, we recommend a multi-vitamin and we monitor their vitamin levels and their electrolytes and nutrition,” said Dr. McDonald.

Complications could include inflammation and erosion.

Dr. McDonald said, “Erosion happens about one to two percent of the time, it's pretty rare. If they do, it is a slow process where the band can erode into the stomach. It is pretty rare, and if it does happen we can take it out."

There were no complications for Becki. She's going strong and twenty pounds from her goal.